Writers Read: Mary Anna Evans

Mary Anna Evans is an award-winning author, a writing professor, and she holds degrees in physics and engineering, a background that, as it turns out, is ideal for writing

her new series, the Justine Byrne series. Set in WWII-era New Orleans, the first book, The Physicists’ Daughter, introduces Justine Byrne, whom Mary Anna describes as “a little bit Rosie-the-Riveter and a little bit Bletchley Park codebreaker.” When Justine, the daughter of two physicists who taught her things girls weren’t expected to know in 1944, realizes that her boss isn’t telling her the truth about the work she does in her factory job, she draws on the legacy of her unconventional upbringing to keep her division running and protect her coworkers, her country, and herself from a war that is suddenly very close to home. The second book, The Traitor Beside Her, is out early this month.

Recently I asked Evans about what she was reading. Her reply:

My career, when viewed uncharitably, could be said to sprawl a bit. I write novels. I write stories. I write essays. I teach college students to write in a multitude of fictional genres, with a focus on mysteries and thrillers, but I teach nonfiction writing, too. My academic work focuses on crime fiction and Agatha Christie, but I weigh in from time to time on writing pedagogy. There’s a joke to be made here about being a jack of all trades but a mistress of none, but there’s a common theme in all the aspects of my career. I work with words. I write them, to be sure, but all writers begin as readers, and I believe we must continue to read if we are to develop in our art.

Thus, I can say in absolute truth that I read for a living. Nothing would have made twelve-year-old me happier than to look into the future and see this.

So what am I reading now?

Well, I’m slated to teach thriller writing this fall, and I’m excited about a new-to-me author, David Heska Wanbli Weiden. I discovered him earlier this year, when reading The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. I was taken by his story “Turning Heart,” which prompted me to buy his acclaimed 2020 novel Winter Counts with the idea that it might be a good text for my thriller class. When The Best Mystery and Suspense 2023 comes out this fall, I will be reading that, because it will be an excellent text for the mystery class I’ll teach in the spring and because, as my experience with Weiden shows, short story anthologies are such a good way to find new authors to read. Also, I have a copy of Lucy Worsley’s new biography of Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman that I’m dying to pick up, because it has the potential to add depth to the book I’m writing about Christie’s portrayal of women and justice. Also, it will be useful when I next teach mystery writing.

This double-dipping (or triple-dipping!)—reading a book that I’m sure I’ll love, but justifying the time taken from other tasks by saying, “It’s for work!”—can cut both ways. My daughter has recently taken me to task for making everything about work, challenging me to read something completely for fun. I’m going to do more of that, but there’s a price to pay for the privilege of reading for a living. The price is that I’m not always in control of what I need to read next.

Work like mine naturally expands to fill the time allotted, but when I next have time to read for unadulterated fun, I’m going to finish N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became. I was a few chapters into it when other responsibilities pulled me away, but it is a brilliant and thoughtful tour de force, and I will get back to it. And I will be reading more books for no other reason than sheer pleasure, because my daughter told me to do that, but also because, while life is too short to read all the books I want to read, it’s long enough to make a good, healthy dent in them.